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by Fred Grott.
Original Post: LBS on J2ME, Bonehead moves
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I think there was some mistakes made on the implementation of LBS on J2ME. Maybe implementation is too strong of word. Okay, lets explain. There are two distinct levels of LBS on Mobile Devices.
Tier one is the entry level in that on GSM you can get the Cell ID which is just a 5 digit number containing the 4 digit cell tower station ID and either a digit denoting the type of antenna or strength of tower in an area. There is also something coparable on CDMA.
With a Cell/Station ID database you can use server infrastucutre to match up station ID to lat/long coordinates to get a poor mans LBS. The devices that do not have GPS receivers tend to be the device most sold and at a low price range withthe exception of GSP enabled iDEN devices.
Tier Two is obviousl the ones with GPS enabled via embedded GPS recivers. These devices with the exception of iDEN devices tend to cost more.
The mistake was not splitting LBS API JSR 179 into two distinct APIs say for example one for Cell ID type stuff and the core stuff in another API. This way the OEMs cold pick up the Cell ID API part as an optional API for their J2ME JVM implementation without paying license fees for the API they did not need on lower cost non GPS embedded/enabled devices.
On the application developer side it forces us to straddle the fence between J2ME and Mobile OS specific programming languages to deliver what we have now via Cell ID which has market saturation and what might be in the future GPS embedded/enabled LBs devbices via JSR 179 on those J2ME JVMs that suport jsr 179.
I think you are right. The separation of cell ID and the core LBS stuff could have made it easier. LBS applications using j2me is new and may be it will be reorganised later. (http://www.j2melbs.com)
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